“Everyone in Israel wants to counter Iran’s military strategy in Syria”
Israel has stepped up attacks on Shiite militia positions in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Meir Javad Nafer says Israel does not want Syria to become a base for Iranian attacks on Israeli soil. Iran denies involvement in the attacks.
The Israeli Prime Minister has threatened that Iran will not be immune anywhere and that Israeli army forces will take action wherever necessary.
The Israeli army bombed two Syrian air bases on Saturday, September 24. An army spokesman announced that Iranian-backed forces planned to attack targets in Israel by installing weapons and explosives on drones.
"Everyone in Israel, even the opposition forces and critics of Benjamin Netanyahu, wants to confront the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which wants to turn Syria into a platform for attacks on Israel," Tel Aviv-based journalist Meir Javanfar told DW. "Israel has nothing to do with Iran's support for Assad or its economic activity in Syria, but the deployment of Shiite militias supported by the IRGC on the Syrian-Israeli border is a red line for Israel."
The Israeli military says it has targeted a base in the Aqraba area south of Damascus that was held by the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Shiite militias. Israel said the base housed attack drones capable of carrying weapons and explosives, which were intended to be used to attack Israel. Israel has accused Iran of planning the operation. Iran has denied the report.
Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council, responded to this news by saying, "This is a lie," and at the same time threatened that the defenders of Syria and Iraq would respond to the actions of Israel and the United States.
Ali Sadrzadeh, a Middle East expert in Germany, told DW: "The Israeli army's attacks on Iranian-backed Shiite militias send a very important message to the Islamic Republic of Iran. That is, you cannot count on your own-backed forces in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon for a proxy war in the region."
Hardline factions in Iran have repeatedly threatened that Israel will not be safe if there is a military attack between the United States and Iran. But Iranian-backed forces in the region, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, have not responded to Israeli attacks so far. “Lebanon’s Hezbollah is in the government coalition and has two ministers in the cabinet,” says Ali Sadrzadeh. “Hezbollah knows that a conflict with Israel could drag Lebanon into a war with Israel.”
Fox News reported that 27 people were killed in the Israeli army's attacks on the two air bases of "Al-Mazha" and "Aqraba" in Damascus, 15 of whom were members of the Syrian army, 8 members of the Islamic Republic's Quds Force, and 4 members of Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Israeli government also implicitly admitted a month ago that it had targeted positions belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) militia in Iraq in an effort to counter Iran's growing influence in that country.
In response to a question about the intensification of Israeli attacks against Iranian-backed forces and the possibility of a war between the two countries, Javadanfar said: "The Popular Mobilization Forces support the transfer of missiles and military equipment from Iran to Syria. The important issue for Israel is to cut off the route of sending weapons to the Syrian-Israeli border. At present, neither Israel nor Iran wants war. But as long as Iran's military strategy in Syria does not change, Israel's attacks on Shiite militia positions will continue."
Source: DW
